The crew of a doomed Polish government airliner continued to try to land, despite at least a dozen warnings from onboard systems to regain altitude, according to a dramatic transcript released Tuesday of the final moments of

the flight that killed the country's president

.

The transcript from the black box voice recorder appears to back the contention of Edmund Klich, the lead Polish investigator into the crash, that the disaster was caused by pilot error, something that could influence Poland's presidential elections to replace Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in the April 10 crash along with 95 others.

The crash has become part of nationalist mythology, with Kaczynski joining the pantheon of national heroes. He died on his way to Russia's Katyn forest, one of the locations where the Soviets murdered more than 20,000 Polish officers in 1940.

Some supporters of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president's twin brother and presidential candidate for the conservative Law and Justice party in the June 20 elections, even see Moscow's hand in the crash, pointing to Lech Kaczynski's longstanding opposition to Russia's attempts to expand its influence in the post-Soviet space.

The government decided to publish the transcript to cut off growing speculation about the crash's cause.

The conspiracy theories find no support in the transcript, and if Kaczynski is no longer seen as a national martyr, that could hurt his brother's election chances.

The transcript, obtained by the Polish government on Monday from Russian officials, makes it clear that the pilots were aware of foul weather at Severny airport, near Smolensk, weather much worse than the minimum requirements for a safe landing. The pilots still tried to put the airliner down.

More than 20 minutes before the crash, pilot Arkadiusz Protasiuk said, "We don't know if we will be able to land." Shortly afterward, Mariusz Kazana, a foreign ministry official, said: "Well, we have a problem," making it clear that Kaczynski was aware of a potential snag in his plan to take part in a Katyn forest ceremony, key to his flagging chances for reelection.

A few minutes later, Kazana said, "At the moment there is no decision from the president on what to do."

The first sign of trouble came at 10:40 local time, with an on-board system issuing a warning: "Terrain Ahead!" As the systems issued warning after warning, 16 in all, the crew continued to calmly count down the meters, not appearing to react to the alerts.

The cockpit voice recorder captured the sound of the airplane eventually hitting a tree, before the recording cut out.

The Tu-154 airliner flipped upside down after shearing off the tip of its wing and plowed into the ground.

 

-- Financial Times

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060103636_pf.html

© 2010 The Washington Post Company